Senior Backend Engineer (Python, Django, Elasticsearch)

Location

This position is only open to candidates based in and eligible to work in the United States.

Responsibilities

As a backend developer at Solinea, you will be primarily working on our flagship product from the API back, as well as committing to the OpenStack codebase.

You will work in a sprint-based agile development team, and will participate in the full cycle including release/sprint planning, feature design, story definition, daily standups, development, testing, code review, and release packaging. You will also work on the automated build, test, and package environment, as well as participate in maintenance of the development lab. Most of all, you will have the opportunity to have fun, be challenged, and grow as a developer while creating a game-changing product to help our fellow cloud operators.

Requirements

The ideal person to fill the role will have a solid track record of cloud, open source, virtualization, real-time data, and API development. You should have the ‘play all fields’ mentality required to be successful in a startup environment. Bring your passion for solving large problems, exploring new technology frontiers, and helping to bootstrap a development organization.

The goldstone backend technology stack primarily consists of Python, Django, Celery, Redis, Logstash, and Elasticsearch. You should be an expert-level developer in the Python/Django ecosystem, and hands-on experience with OpenStack or some other cloud management framework.

In addition to the core skills, things like systems automation, machine learning, data visualization, and prior startup experience are definitely relevant to the position.

The ideal candidate will have at least a BS degree in CS or related field along with relevant work experience.

Benefits

Solinea offers comprehensive benefits including:

Medical, dental, vision, life, disability insurance, 401k plan

Flexible spending accounts

Pre-tax commuter benefits

Free coffee/tea in offices

20 days of PTO/yr

Flexible working environment

Joel Test score: 8 out of 12

The Joel Test is a twelve-question measure of a software team’s quality.

Do you use source control? Yes
Can you make a build in one step? Yes
Do you make daily builds? Yes
Do you have a bug database? Yes
Do you fix bugs before writing new code? Depends on severity
Do you have an up-to-date schedule? No
Do you have a spec? Yes
Do programmers have quiet working conditions? Yes
Do you use the best tools money can buy? Yes
Do you have testers? No
Do new candidates write code during their interview? Yes
Do you do hallway usability testing? No

Overview

Founded in 2010, IP Street has built the world’s preeminent Intellectual Property(IP) analytics and visualization engine, in conjunction with a nationally recognized IP law firm. Our SaaS product helps corporations and financial analysts quickly and efficiently analyze IP information. We make IP data easy to get, use, and understand!

As with any organization, we’ve continued to evaluate new ways to provide value to our clients. We’re evolving into a “SaaS+” model, which pairs our service with expert consultation to assist our clients in assessment and evaluation. Our focus remains on the financial and technology markets.

Our technology stack is almost all open-source, with some nifty esoteric search technologies. Most of your work will be in Python and Django, in a Mac-based development environment, deploying to Linux. Other technologies include Postgres, Redis, and Solr. Our client-side code relies on Highcharts and Backbone.

This is a “small b” big data firm. But since we’re a scrappy start-up, we don’t have a big firm’s resources. We compensate by hiring senior people who are self-directed, appreciate real-world development trade-offs, and have a can-do attitude. It’s OK to not know something if you’re eager and willing to learn it. We know that bad code always haunts, so if you enjoy writing good code using a language’s standards and idioms, you’ve come to the right place!

This position is in a small engineering team. Its focus is on server-side work, which includes poking fingers into PostgreSQL, Solr, and other technologies. So, it’s not just coding. We do feature design, development, testing, DevOps, some customer support, and work closely with product management. Did I say that we wear multiple hats every day?

On to the details…

Responsibilities

Collaborate with others in product direction, priorities, and feature design

Design, implement, and test new product features and bugfixes

Make the user experience of our products as powerful, simple, and manifest as possible

Do what’s needed to move the company forward!

Qualifications

Significant server-side development experience. We’re not hung up on a number, because one year for you could equal five years for someone else. We’re looking for the confidence and awareness that comes from working with server-side web code. Here are some keywords: Subtasks, sentinels and software locks, software farms, scaling, and schema migration. If you’re a smart person who enjoys working on software systems running on servers, you can check this box.

Significant experience developing in Python or a Python-based framework. We’re a Python and Django shop, and there’s no PHP, Ruby, or Perl within 2000’ of our codebase. This must be serious development, and not, “I occasionally write 20-line scripts.”

If you’re very experienced in another language and are eager to learn Python, that could be OK. Can you convince us that you’re looking for a great opportunity to learn?

If you don’t know Django, that’s fine — it’s easy to learn.

Abilities that are nice to have: Significant interaction with PostgreSQL, Solr, or another type of db/search engine.

Some experience in JavaScript would be another plus. This won’t be your focus, though.

To apply

IP Street’s application runs on Python 2.7. Earlier this week, I evaluated all our Python packages for Python 3 support, as the first step in deciding when to migrate our codebase.

Although this was the time I’ve checked our packages for Python 3 support, I expected Django to be the only one that didn’t officially support it. (Production support is slated for version 1.6, which is now in release-candidate.) But Django is the only project whose development roadmap I closely follow! D’oh! Talk about a blind spot!!

This is why it’s good to sit down and formally check each package. Make a list of every package and check each one…

Founded in 2009, IP Street develops and markets software to help corporations, law firms, and financial analysts better analyze patent-related information. We make IP data easy to get, use, and understand!

Summary

We’re a start-up that’s developed a new way to visualize and data-mine intellectual property. We’re small and scrappy, have an innovative engineering team, and have built the business on awesome products that companies buy!

Our technology stack is almost all open-source, with some nifty esoteric search technologies. Most of your work will be in Python and Django, in a Mac-based development environment, deploying to Linux. Other technologies include Celery, Postgres, Redis, and Solr. Our client-side code relies on Highcharts and Backbone, and supports desktop and mobile users.

This is “small b” big data, with lots of interesting challenges!

Responsibilities

Collaborate with others in product direction, priorities, and features

Design, implement, and test new product (primarily but not exclusively server-side) features

Some front-end coding and debugging, as needed

Make the user experience as powerful, simple, and manifest as possible

Be positive, flexible, and do what’s needed to move the company forward

Qualifications

10+ years experience in server-side development. Web development would be ideal, but it can be any kind of server-side code. We’re looking for expertise in processing pipelines or workflows, software farms, scaling, schema migration, etc. Or you’re a really smart person who loves complex software systems running on servers!

Significant experience developing in Python or Python-based frameworks, on the order of at least 5 years or so. This must be serious development, not, “I write a 20-line script now and then.”

Substantial experience in, and understanding of, a web framework such as Django. We’re looking for at least 3 years’ experience. Or if you don’t know Django, you’re eager to learn!

I’ve found some candidates for replacing Celery in my company’s product. (My reasons for replacing it are elucidated here, here, and here.)

I got these from web trawling, blog comments, and some e-mail. At first blush, none of the candidates have any disqualifying attributes, except for lacking subtasks. Celery is the only Python-friendly asynchronous task technology with subtask support, so I’ll need to bend on that if I want any alternatives to consider. (If I’m wrong on this point, please let me know in the comments!)

I’m not saying that these candidates will definitely satisfy all (sans subtasks) of my requirements. Right now they’ve just passed my initial sniff test. The next step will be to read documentation in detail, assess the health/activity of its community and developers, and try some sample code.

I’m ready to start looking at candidates to replace Celery in my company’s product. (The reasons are elucidated here, here, and here.)

Our SaaS product provides data mining and visualization for intellectual property. A 10-second elevator pitch is, it’s as though we attached Microsoft Excel’s chart wizard to US and international patent offices. (“As though” = “We didn’t do that, and in fact we go way beyond that, but I’m giving you a simple description.”) Our code is 100% Django and Python.

I looked at how we use Celery in our codebase. The reality of how we use it is much simpler than our ideas when we started two years ago. Combining our existing features with our product roadmap, I know with high confidence what features we need for our asynchronous tasks. And which ones are nice to have but not required, and which ones we’ll probably never need.

Commenting on my update to my Celery rant, @asksol asked me to post the Pylint results that made me question the claim of backwards compatibility.

(“@Asksol asked” — See what I did there? That’s alliteration. It’s a sign of a quality blog post. Ask for it by name.)

Again for the record, @asksol is a smart and friendly person. I know I wouldn’t last a day supporting a project the way he has supported Celery over multiple years. I’ve calmed down since yesterday, and I hope that something good results from my rant — if not for me, then for a future Celery user needing upgrade help. In his reply to my rant, @asksol describes some history and rationale for how he manages code change, and I encourage you to read it.